Month: January 2010

New Year’s One Wish: Specs on Time
New Year’s One Resolution: Fostering More Innovation

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It is that time of year again …. New Year’s resolutions. Well, I won’t talk – in this blog – about staying fit or a better work-life balance, but rather I’ll keep it focused on software engineering. I will also keep it simple and limit to one wish: specs on time — and one resolution: fostering more innovation.

New Year’s One Wish: Specs on Time

If I could wave a magic wand, and change just one thing in my professional life, it would be: Engineering receives specs 8 weeks prior to the official start of the release

Why?

As obvious as the answer is, in general, the Business team (product management and execs who are involved in the product roadmap) don’t seem to grasp that if Engineering gets incomplete specs when we are supposed to start coding, well … we can’t start coding – which means we will not be able to deliver as many features as we could have.

For example, let’s say that one release finishes July 31, and that –as is typically the case – we only start discussing the December release on August 1. The result is that the specs do not get finalized until the end of August. Thus rather than having the expected 5 months to implement the new release, we have four. Actually, we have much less. …

Why “8 weeks prior”?

A lot of work must take place between the time Engineering receives the spec, and the time all developers can start coding in earnest:

Scope the deliverables: to figure out what subset of the proposed list of features submitted by PM can actually be delivered in the imposed timeframe

Finalize the exact deliverables: Based on the “cost” (scope) provided by Engineering, the PM team determines the final list of deliverables for the release

Architecture and design: some features require thinking before coding J

Technology analysis: evaluate and validate any new third-party tools, libraries, or packages

Task breakdown and allocation to individual developers

Only when all these tasks have been completed – at least on the most important features – can development start in earnest.

8 weeks seems like a long time, and there is obviously flexibility in the number. The newer the functionality, the more uncertainty on the scope, and the more research required, the more lead time is needed by Engineering to plan out the release.

A good rule of thumb is: when the previous release is feature-complete is the time when PM and Engineering need to start planning the next release, specs in hand.

What Spec?

… Enough to be able to scope, and plan

In order for Engineering to commit to deliver certain features by a certain date, Engineering needs enough information about these features to be able to scope them – in other words, something more substantial than a handful of bullets on a PowerPoint slide, or a wiki.

There are many ways to write up requirements, and in the spirit of Agile Development, we don’t really want, nor need, everything written down upfront. On the other hand, Engineering needs a modicum of clarity and specificity about what needs to be built. This can be delivered via use cases, UI mock-ups, flow-charts, feature list as long as the Engineering team can appreciate the scope of work: e.g. feature enhancement vs brand new functionality? Is new technology required? Are there performance challenges? Are there new partners or systems with whom we need to interface? Etc.

New Year’s One Resolution: Fostering More Innovation

The day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month pressure on the Engineering team is “to deliver on-time, on quality and on budget” The vast majority, not to say all, demands are short-term and reactionary: requests from customers, or responses to competitive pressures.

However, the Engineering team also has the responsibility to innovate: to add to our products something that nobody else has thought of. If we don’t, then within a couple of years, a competitor, or a new startup, will, forcing us to react and catch up.

So, how does one drive innovation in an Engineering team, when there is never enough time to do the things that the business team requires? The answer is that we have to make, sometimes steal, the time, and we have to be efficient – both are admittedly easier blogged about than done. Please send me your suggestions!

Making the Time to Innovate

Few companies are as profitable as Google, and can afford to grant a blanket 20% of their time to employees to do self-directed research. On the other hand, in a world where technologies become obsolete within a couple of years, it is suicidal not to heed Steve Covey’s 7th Habit: “Sharpen the Saw”. This applies to each of us as individuals, but also as a team.

In practice, this means each engineer must, on his/her own, make time to research new technologies and approaches. It also means that as a team, we need to organize time to discuss promising technologies.

The best approach that I have found is “Tech Talks” where members of the Engineering team present their recent work; articles, books or blogs they have read; or simply a new technique that they have invented.

Directed Innovation

“Directed innovation” is admittedly a contradiction in terms. Yet, a small company cannot afford to disperse its resources. It is thus incumbent on the leadership to present the right context for the Engineering team in which to explore, why our customers buy our product and what will make a true difference for our business: performance, scalability, usability, reliability, etc?

With this context, we can direct our investigations and leverage our efforts. Again, team work, and group discussions usually accelerate the growth of ideas.

Getting a startup to articulate its vision and strategy, particularly how these translates to technology needs, has traditionally been a challenge in most of the startups where I have worked. The mode of operation has typically been more reactive – following the orders that will make the quarter …

This is exactly why fostering more innovation is my one and only New Year’s resolution.